Mr. Speaker, before addressing the motion before us today, I would like to begin by informing you that, henceforth, the Bloc Mps will be dividing their time into two periods of ten minutes, and that my colleague from Trois-Rivières will be speaking immediately after me.
When the matter of the family trusts resurfaced to become a source of concern to all Canadians and all Quebecers, thanks to the efforts of the members of the Bloc Quebecois-I shall come back to this point-and when the official opposition suggested that this opposition day be devoted to the matter of family trusts, I made it known to my colleague from Ste-Hyacinthe-Bagot that I wanted to intervene in this debate. I am far from claiming to be a tax expert, which is why I will let others explain the matter in detail-as my colleague for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot has already done on several occasions, moreover-but I would like to draw the attention of this House to the context surrounding this whole affair.
This matter of family trusts is one that has been of concern to the Bloc Quebecois almost since its inception. In the last campaign, the Bloc raised the issue on numerous occasions. After the Bloc obtained 54 seats and gained recognition as the official opposition in this House, the Leader of the Opposition at that time, Mr. Bouchard, raised the question of family trusts on a number of occasions during his interventions in this House.
The auditor general's report fully justifies our concerns, proving that we were right to raise the issue in recent years, while the Liberals on the other side of this House have clearly sought to stifle this shameful scandal by every means possible.
I just heard the hon. member for Willowdale. I suggest that he audition for the festival "Juste pour rire" next year in Montreal, or "Just for laughs" if he prefers, since there is an English version, because his comments outside this House, in committee and here in the House today should be good for laughs. We cannot afford to take them seriously.
The auditor general put his finger on a major problem in the tax system. The government may argue that the loophole pointed out by the auditor general goes back to the previous government. As the hon. member for Trois-Rivières just said, if the Conservative government was responsible, why is this government reluctant to shed every possible light on the problem?
It is pretty obvious, and this has been said time and time again, that there is only one reason why the government does not want to shed light on the matter. It wants to protect its own interests and the interests of those who support it. It is a big joke to hear the hon. member for Willowdale describe these experts as people whose credibility is undisputed, although it is public knowledge that they belong to companies that finance the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. That is public knowledge. It is not gossip or libel. It is a fact that representatives of these companies finance the Liberal Party.
For the government to invite experts like these, competent though they may be, is like inviting some foxes and asking them for tips on protecting the chicken coop. That is what happened. They invited experts who consistently provide funding for the Liberal Party and told them: "Could you tell us whether it is right to take money out of Canada and invest it elsewhere, to avoid paying
income tax?" It would have been astonishing indeed if the experts had not answered the way they did.
Take the Minister of Finance. A week ago on Radio-Canada, a journalist asked him whether he had a family trust. He answer is on the record-and I took the trouble of listening to the news bulletin again to be sure I did not misquote him-and it was as follows, and I will quote him verbatim: "There are many family trusts. When you have young children, you do that. In case I die, I would want someone to take care of my children". But that has no connection with income tax.
When he said this, the Minister of Finance admitted that he himself had a family trust, and that the reason was to protect his children. But who in this House will protect the children of the unemployed, victims of cuts that have been made for the past two or three years? The same finance minister says, admits in each budget he brings down that, with the unemployment insurance fund, he makes $5 billion in profits every year at the expense of the unemployed and of single mothers who do not have even enough to support their children. Who is the Minister of Finance trying to protect? The answer is obvious. Now who will protect these families living on unemployment insurance which, contrary to what the Minister of National Revenue said, cannot escape the Income Tax Act because they cannot afford to have family trusts?
It takes some nerve to state, as the Minister of National Revenue did in this House, that anyone can have a family trust. It may be true of seniors who decide to move to Florida. What seniors in Canada and Quebec can afford a family trust when their pensions are being cut back? Who, among the unemployed, I repeat, can afford a family trust?
They are mocking people. Mocking people and undermining the credibility of our institutions. And because of that, the people have lost faith not only in our tax system, but also in governments and their elected officers.
I will conclude by reminding the House that the Bloc Quebecois has given itself a mandate to promote sovereignty, and we will keep promoting sovereignty. We have also given ourselves a mandate to represent the interests of Quebec in this House. Our work on the family trust issue is a perfect example of the kind of work we have done here over the past three years. And the auditor general agrees with the Bloc Quebecois. His message is that someone in this House has to be free to stand up and condemn these unacceptable actions on the part of this government.